Popular Politics In Shakespeare's Plays And Modern Democracy Crisis

Shakespeare has been a universally accepted cultural icon across the world,and has enjoyed multiple titles such as poet,dramatist,master of English language,philosopher,humanist,Christian,historian,political thinker,professional in law,and the list can be expanded continually as his readers can never stop to lose interests in him.And critics has come to acknowledge it's the very openness(or indeterminacy)and universality in Shakespeare's texts that truly justify him “not of an age,but for all ages”,just as his cotemporary friend and rival Ben Jonson memorized Shakespeare several hundred years ago.Through reading Shakespeare's history plays and comments on them,we can find it's an endless controversy over the dramatist's political stance: some held him as a conservatist,propagandist of authority,some believe him as a progressive,and still others find it hard to classify him due to his elusiveness and self-contradiction.This paper is thus to revive the discussion of Shakespeare's politics by examining his three plays 2 The Henry VI,Julius Caesar and Coriolanus.Shakespeare had his history plays written by reference to historical records but did never intend to retell the historical facts.Indeed,Shakespeare's history are everywhere an echo to his own time.My study is a rhetorical and historical one that locates Shakespeare's plays in his own time,especially the popular politics in Elizabethan England,and that examines the change that Shakespeare did in his plays compared with his source texts.It starts from the first chapter,examining the change that Shakespeare did in his description of the common people in his three history plays 2 Henry IV,Julius Caesar and Coriolanus in comparison with their source texts.The dramatist's treatment of the common people is ambivalent: on one hand,Shakespeare gives more voice to the commons,and highlights somehow their greater role in the history and politics;on the other hand,Shakespeare particularly magnifies the dangerous dimension of the common people,making them appear an irrational,fickle and violent crowd.And several causes to Shakespeare's rewriting the people and especially his staging crowd violence are investigated.First,it's associated with Greek tradition of distrust in the demos and attack on the democracy.Second,it's an echo in the playwright's lifetime,when popular rising was posing a serious threat to the existence of crown.With open assemblies often prohibited by royal decree,the staging of crowds was an extremely controversial action.By taking a burlesque treatment of the crowd actions and by making their image clownish,Shakespeare might be looking for a means to meet the censorship.In addition,when cruel sports rival the theater as a part of popular entertainment in the Renaissance,Shakespeare might risk his career to stage violence in order to answer the audience' s desire for aggressive merriment.Discussion was fierce over the function of carnival spirit of theater--whether it functions to consolidate or subvert the hierarchic order;the core of the debate concerns whether to accredit commoner audience with capability of political critique and self-reflection.In my opinion,just as more critics now tend to think,Shakespeare's theater Shakespeare's theater opens a distance from which audience stand in judgment of the crowd's violence,and become more aware of their vulnerabilities.It's not a means of ideological repression but a space which fosters political analysis.The real focus of my study is not about Shakespeare's political stance,for whoever dares provide absolute answers to this issue are actually risking his reputation for being partial,narrow-minded and dictatorial.I would rather see Shakespeare as a political thinker of independence and humanism,who through his dramatic world deliberates over the viability of democratic rule,for which was becoming a new trend in the Elizabethan England.In the second chapter,the individual tragedies of three central characters in the plays,Jack Cade,Brutus,and Coriolanus are examined in relation to the politics of popularity.It's found that Shakespeare's politicians rarely exercise unfettered sovereign power.Authority is often dependent upon,and sometimes originates in,the popular will.In spite of their different situations,Cade,Brutus,Coriolanus share their common tragical fate when they are all involved with the politics of popularity by either appealing to or going against the popular will.Shakespeare's approach to the three individual tragedies is also deviated from the historical records.The dramatist intends to show that the mere presence of publics is no guarantor of pursuing common good and preventing corruption,as we tend to think in modern society of democracy.In the third chapter,it further analyses the rhetorical contest between Brutus and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar in relation to politics of popularity.Brutus plays as the noble orator,whose speech fails to adapt to the common people,whereas Antony acts as the populist orator,making a full use of the art of rhetoric to stir the common people to riot.It reveals whether the art of rhetoric will be properly used has drastic consequences for the common good in contemporary world.In the fourth chapter,the tension between popular politics and the rule of law in 2 Henry VI and Coriolanus is explored.In the play of 2 Henry VI,the corruption of injustice in Cade's trials acts as an echo and a revenge against the judicial corruption of the governing classes in the earlier trials of the play.Although Cade and his rebels display faulty reasoning and prejudice,but they articulate legitimate abuses,many of which concern the English legal system.In the moments before the outbreak of this violence,the appeal to the intelligent judgment and moral passion of the commons implied in Warwick's forensic inquiry into Humphrey's murder can be interpreted as offering a powerfully utopian image of participatory justice as a form of the commons' political agency.In Coriolanus,Rome suffers a procedural crisis.Coriolanus stands outside of the republic's laws in a position of supremacy that appears as tyranny,whereas the tribunes,with the support of the people,usurp patrician power and in doing so alter custom.The tension of democratic participation and rule of law,as demonstrated by Shakespeare,is still the central topic that needs to be addressed and settled in contemporary political world.In many ways,Shakespeare's world dominated by the politics of popularity is grim and gloomy.Likewise,our contemporary world is witnessing the rising of populism,which addresses many problems inherent in modern democracy.An investigation of the popular politics in Shakespeare's plays brings some insights on our contemporary politics.